Process of covering rollers with photographic films.



' UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ERNST ROLFFS, OF SIEGFELD, GERMANY.

PROCESS OF COVERING ROLLERS WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC FILMS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 689,230, dated December 17, 1901.

Application filed November 21, 1899. Serial No. 737,832. (No specimens-l To ail whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, ERNST ROLFFS, a subject of the King of Prussia,German Emperor, and a resident of Siegfeld, near Siegburg, in the Province of the Rhine, German Empire, have invented a new and useful Process of Covering Plates or Rollers with a Photographic Substance Sensible to the Action of Light, of which the following is an exact specification.

The present invention relates to a process for easily and equally covering rollers and plates with a substance sensible to the action of light, so that the rollers might be employed for printing purposes.

This process is a very simple one and merely consists of arranging the roller to be covered upon a lathe. Upon the support fixed to the mandrel of this latheis arranged a receptacle containing the liquid for covering the roller. This receptacle is provided with a fine opening, forming an outlet for the liquid. The roller is rotated, and owing to the horizontal advancing movement of the support the liquid equally runs down upon the roller-surface and covers the same. When plates are to be covered, the horizontal movement of the support must be altered correspondingly. The receptacle is then provided with a longitudinal slot in breadth corresponding to the size of the plate. When the support is advanced, the liquid equally will cover the plate upon its whole surface.

In order to make my invention more clear, the apparatus for carrying out the process is illustrated in the accompanying drawing, in which A is the lathe, provided with a support B, capable of being moved in the longitudinal direction by means of a spindle provided with screw-thread. Underneath the rotating shaft 0 of the lathe a heating device is arranged, as, per example, a gas-pipe D, provided with perforations on its upper part.

The covering of the roller is carried out by means of this apparatus in the following manner: The roller E is mounted upon the shaft of the lathe in a suitable manner and the support brought into its initial positionthat is to say, to one extremity of the roller. Upon the support B a receptacle containing the covering liquidas, for instance, a solution of ohromic gelatinis placed, and after the cock G of the receptacle F has been opened the lathe is set at work in such a manner that while the support advances the roller rotates. Since the roller carries out only a rotating movement and is not moved in longitudinal direction and, on the other hand, the support upon which the receptacle is mounted ad vances parallel to the axis of the roller, the covering liquid flowing onto theroller forms fine spiral lines, which afterward spread absolutely uniformly upon the whole surface.

The heating device D prevents the cover in case when chromic gelatin or the like is used from getting dry before the spiral lines spread upon the whole surface.

The heating device can also serve for a previously uniform heating of the roller-surface to be covered and for a subsequent drying of the cover.

Having thus fully described the nature of my said invention, what I desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is A process for covering rollers with a substance sensible to the action of light, consisting insimultaneously flowing the substance while in a liquid condition upon a roller in a fine spiral line and rotating the roller, allowing the liquid lines to cohere together to form a smooth coating and drying the liquid lines during the rotation of the roller, for the purpose and substantially as described.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand in presence of two witnesses.

ERNST ROLFFS. Witnesses:

J OHANN SAHOLZ, WILLIAM H. MADDEN. 

